Put RIDGIDConnect on your site…and make it fit in!
So you're up and running on RIDGIDConnect. You're sending reports out, documenting your work, and overall, being more productive. As you look through the "my Account" section, you come across "Put RIDGIDConnect On Your Site." After reading through the description, this sounds like a great idea. You will still get your customers the report you created, and can drive more traffic to your website, provide your customers with the sense that this is a complete solution since they'll be going to your website and not RIDGIDConnect, and expose them to any special offers or deals you currently have running while they're looking at your site.
Then, you come across the form to create the code snippet you need to embed on your site and say, "Whoa, I'm not a web developer, this looks like it's in a foreign language! Well...I'll give it a try."
There's all sorts of strange combinations of letters and numbers but you finally discover that if you click on the little red box you get a pop up with a choice of 100 or so different colors. You find a red that looks similar to your website and decide to go with it. Maybe you customize the text or the size of the box a little bit...but, finally you copy the HTML code snippet at the bottom and get it embedded into your web site. It's close to the right color, not perfect, but that's the best you could do, right? Wrong! Follow along for an easy way to seamlessly produce a "Put RIDGIDConnect On Your Site" box that looks like it has been there all along.
Next to where it says, "Background color" there's a text box with six characters in it. This corresponds to the specific color code that you've selected. It is made up of six characters and each one can range from A-Z and from 0-9. I'll spare you the details, but for more you can read this. If you can't ask your web developer or graphic designer what this value you should be, here's how to get it:
Using Mozilla Firefox as your web browser, you can search for "Add Ons". Click on the "Tools" menu and select "Add Ons" from the drop down that opens. Search for "ColorZilla".
Once you get it installed and open your browser back up, you'll notice that in the bottom left corner there's an eye dropper. If you click on this eye dropper you'll start the ColorZilla add on. It will replace your mouse pointer with a set of cross hairs and as you scroll over your website, you'll see that it gives you the RGB value as well as the six character hexadecimal HTML color code that you need. Simply find the color you want to match with, copy down the six character value as highlighted in the picture below, paste it into the box on RIDGIDConnect, and voila! Your "Put RIDGIDConnect On Your Site" box will be matched perfectly to your website.
Android and BlackBerry Apps!
Last month the RIDGIDConnect team added a BlackBerry application that allowed for users with those devices to upload images and videos while still in the field. A user back in the office could complete the rest of the report or the details could be filled in from the mobile web site. Your customer would receive the media far sooner than was previously possible.
As BlackBerry Alliance Select members and with a large percentage of our user base using those devices, you might expect us to only support that platform. Not so, the team is extremely excited to announce the arrival of our Android application that will let you upload the images and videos you capture with your phone directly to reports on RIDGIDConnect.
This tool will allow you to document your work, provide before and after photos, and capture visual references at a rate that was never before possible. Your feedback is extremely valuable to us so we encourage you to click the link below, download and use the application, and then suggest to us what you'd like to see next! You'll also find the installation links to our BlackBerry application on the same page.
Android and BlackBerry Install Page
In other exciting news, we expect to add the capability to watch the videos you’ve uploaded to your RIDGIDConnect reports on your web enabled phone in the very near future. You’ll no longer have to remember to bring the correct DVD or VHS with last year’s inspection along with you to the job, simply pull up the video on your phone and remember exactly what you saw. Watch this blog and our Twitter account for updates!
BlackBerry Uploader Pre-BETA
I have been a little quiet lately because A LOT of cool stuff is going on! I'm going to keep this short and share a quick link with you all to check out from your BlackBerry smartphones.
http://www.ridgid.com/connectinstall.htm
This will work on version 4.6 and higher BlackBerry devices. This is just a peek at what the developers are working on these days. It is by no means a final product, but I have been using it for a few days without issues. If you have any feedback or ideas, please leave them for us!
By the way, there is no added cost to using this with your existing RIDGIDConnect account!
Promoting Your Brand
I have been working with a few new customers and potential customers that are all trying to do the same thing: GROW THEIR BUSINESS! Hey, I am trying to do the same thing here 
Here are a three ways our current customers are using RIDGIDConnect to grow their business...
- Using reports to demonstrate capabilities to customers. http://bit.ly/dw1jWw
- Adding supporting literature about your company to all of your reports to help promote your other offerings or further explain your offering. http://bit.ly/dAjhZp
- Advertising online report retrieval from their website... http://neptuneplumbing.net/
How are you using RIDGIDConnect to grow your business? Leave me a comment and let me know.
Would I Give Up My Blackberry for My EVO 4G?
Nope, but would I give back my EVO 4G? Nope! What is the big deal with this phone, and why my hesitation to use it for everything?
Let me start with the good. It has a ton of very cool apps. Of those apps, there aren't many I expect to use on a regular basis. They are creative in how they integrate the camera and GPS, but they just aren't useful for much more than showing off the phone.
It is a WiFi hotspot for my other devices! It is very simple to activate the hot spot feature and get other devices on the net in seconds. That means my Evo, iPhone, iPad, laptop and Blackberry can all share the same internet plan. Picture this: You are trying to get a wireless signal from your laptop in a basement during a job, but you just don't get cell coverage. Well, you could not connect via wifi to your hot spot sitting on the main floor. Pretty cool trick to extend wireless access that you cant do with tethering or an aircard.
This EVO just doesn't have as polished of an experience for navigation and messaging that a Blackberry does, but for internet browsing it rocks(Flash support! ...kinda). It sports the popular WebKit based browser that the higher end mobile phones all seem to be running now. This is coming to Blackberry in their new devices this year!
So what is disappointing about this device? It is big and clunky for one. As I stated before the navigation between apps isn't great. The on-screen keyboard is a pain to deal with when you are entering data in form fields. It is also difficult to type while doing something else and looking away from the keys like you can on a Blackberry. The speed of the processor in this thing comes at a price: battery life! Oh, and if you happen to have some divx movies you want to watch, think again. There isnt support for the amount of media players that you have on the Blackberry.
Overall, it is a very cool device for some niche applications. If you are on the thing all of the time messaging, tweeting, face booking, or talking, then you might want another device.
What does this mean for RIDGIDConnect? Some of you already know about our mobile client that will be released soon based off our award winning CRM Application. Expect to see a media uploader come out first. Along with the Blackberry uploader, we are working on an Android based one as well. Most of the professionals we have seen use a Blackberry, but we know there are other devices being used. If we see enough activity in this area from our customers, you can expect to see a lot more attention paid to this area to remain a top mobile development company.
What device do you carry today? What will your next mobile device be?